Daily US Times: China’s Alibaba, the world’s biggest online retailer, has been hit with a record fine equivalent to $2.75bn.
Regulators in China said the tech and retailer giant had abused its dominant market position for several years.
The company said in a statement that it accepted the ruling and would “ensure its compliance”.
Analysts say the fine shows Beijing intends to step against internet platforms that it thinks are too big.
Alibaba is not well known outside China, but inside the country, it is an ever-present behemoth.
Retail is its main activity but its work has spread to cloud computing, digital payments and credit.
The fine amounts to 4% of the company’s revenue in 2019.
Chinese regulators say Alibaba restricted competition by stopping some sellers using other platforms.
It is the latest in a chain of events targeting Alibaba that kicked off last October, just after its high-profile co-founder, Jack Ma, told a gathering of China’s leading regulators that they were stifling innovation.
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is well-known in the country as one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Hong Hao, head of research at BOCOM International in Hong Kong, told Reuters news agency: “This penalty will be viewed as a closure to the anti-monopoly case for now by the market.”
China’s other tech giants are also coming under increasing pressure from government regulators worried about their growing influence.
Twelve companies were fined last month over deals that violated anti-monopoly rules. The companies included Baidu, Didi Chuxing, Tencent, SoftBank and a ByteDance-backed firm.
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